


Wishing is for Fishes

by AshToSilver



Category: Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Genre: Body Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 21:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2285637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/pseuds/AshToSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You’ve always been a freak." That fake, soothing tone, so strange coming from such a cracked voice. "Now everyone will know it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wishing is for Fishes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovejoker4ever](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lovejoker4ever).



> A prompt from lovejoker4ever, who asked for a Batman and Red Hood (Jokester) story.
> 
>  **EDIT Aug/2016:** I have changed my username, I am now going by AshToSilver on AO3 and [my new Tumblr](http://ashtosilver.tumblr.com/)! You can still call me Alex, but I no longer have a day of the week in my name.

Sometimes he wondered if his traumatized memory worked in reverse, all the good memories lost over time, and the bad ones seared into the soft tissue of his brain.

He missed good memories. He couldn’t remember what his parents had looked like - what their  _names_  were. There was nothing from his childhood, teenage years and young adulthood other then blurs of days that offered no significances, or that offered pain. Hell, it was a good day if he could remember his own apartment address.

But the rest - the rest he could remember. The burn of bullets burying themselves too deep for his fingers to get at. The deep cold of being homeless in the dead of winter. Hunger,  _pain_ , from hits and stabs, the sting of the Owl, readying to swoop.

And those were the good days.

The bad days went something like this.

He knew he was dreaming, in the sort of sense that he  _knew_  this had happened before. But the cracked cement digging into his shoulders  _felt_  real. The blood choking his throat, blocking his nose, that felt real.

"You pathetic little freak." The Owl was massive, massive in life and even bigger here, shifting metal feathers making only the faintest of rustling noises. The mask was total, pieces of metal so small they could have been down slicing into its face, the plates and steel feathers covering the rest, those eyes that were an unnatural shade of yellow. When the Owl leaned forward, he could  _smell_  blood on his breath, smell meat, and there was flecks of it around that iron beak. Maybe the Owl had found some innocent to snack on before it’d gotten here, or maybe the pain in his gut was the Owl’s handiwork - maybe it’d bitten down and pulled out his insides to feast on.

Though he had a feeling that he’d remember that.

"Do you think you can run." The Owl’s head twisted to the side, almost unnaturally. "Do you think you can  _hide_.” Those yellow eyes were total, no white, nothing but a thin slit of black.

"I’ll always find you." The Owl’s voice was almost loving - as loving as a voice of terror could get. "But just to be on the safe side, let’s make  _absolutely sure_.”

His broken bones shifted against each other as the Owl began to drag him towards the chemical tanks this factory was known for. He tried to struggle, but he could barely  _breath_ , barely lift his own head.

He felt the edge of the tank dig into his tender chest. The Owl hauled him up, leaned him over the edge, over the bubbling pit.

"No." He whispered, struggled, yelled. "No! Please!"

"You’ve always been a freak." That fake, soothing tone, so strange coming from such a cracked voice. "Now everyone will know it."

He grabbed the edges of the pit, trying to hold himself up, trying to keep his head above the acid. A clawed hand wormed its talons into his hair, and began to press down.

And his world tilted, down, down,  _down_ , until his vision vanished in a swirling mixture of burning acid, until his lungs burned, until his skin began to peel, until, until,  _until_ -

"Red, come on, wake up."

The Owl pulled him back up, arching his neck and allowing him to spit blood-tinted fluids out of his lungs. His skin was  _burning_. He want to scream, but everything that came out was mangled and horrible.

“ _Red_. Please wake up.”

One of his arms had slipped in, and he couldn’t  _feel_  it. He could see it, the fabric of his sleeve beginning to break apart, the skin mutating, blisters forming from the heat and popping from the acid almost instantaneously.

He screamed, and screamed and  _screamed_.

And then he was awake.

Bruce was holding him, Red’s head buried underneath the larger man’s chin. The sheets were tangled around his legs, sweat cooling on his skin.

There was an instinctive desire to throw off his bindings, to swat away Bruce’s touch and  _run_ , run until he found the Owl, and pulled all his feathers off.

"It’s over." Reason number one for not moving - Bruce’s voice was  _awesome_. Concerned and soft, a callused hand rubbing circles on his back. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

"That implies that the wounds that monster gave me do not keep on hurting." He whispered, his voice a little hoarse. "I am always marked."

He’d gotten feeling back, a bit, in the right arm that had been submerged. The same half-numb, half-pained feeling was all over his right shoulder, along the right side of his neck, and almost seventy present of his face. The skin was a malted white, varying shades of colour. The scars were the worse - the twisted, stretched scarring tissue from the heat, the acid.

The Owl could always find him. He’d made absolutely sure of that.

"I can have this fixed." Bruce stroked a finger along his face, across the scar tissue. "If you’d like to get rid of it."

"I dunno." He hated the marks, that was for sure. "Do you want me to get rid of them?"

"I want you to be happy." Bruce’s expression was soft, kind. "What you look like doesn’t matter to me."

Red felt his heart flip uncomfortably. He didn’t have a lot of experience with happy. But perhaps… maybe once the Owl was dead, he’d think about it.

Once the Owl was dead, Gotham could rest, and he could rest with it.


End file.
